


By The Angel

by BaZzZ21



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Heavy Angst, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:37:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18515938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaZzZ21/pseuds/BaZzZ21
Summary: In which Naruto and Sasuke are half-humans, half-angels. Nephilim.And of course, wherein Naruto desperately searches for Sasuke. So what if it leads him to the demon realms? Everyone knows he would turn heaven and hell upside down just so he could see Sasuke once again.





	By The Angel

**Author's Note:**

> The angels & demons trope never really gets old. My all-time fave classic, if you will. :P

If there is one thing Uzumaki Naruto is proud of, it’s his unparalleled stamina. He hears a loud grunt as Lee topples to the matted ground from one of the rafters lining up the interior of the pitched roof of the training room, admitting defeat by saying time  _fucking_  out. Naruto couldn’t help the self-satisfied smirk that pulls at the corners of his lips, because Lee is one of the only few who could match him in terms of grit and tenacity both in training and battle, but his facial muscles freeze halfway as the gesture reminds him of a certain someone.   
  
His lips pull down into a frown instead.   
  
“Naruto.” Neji beckons him over, his pale hand swinging a seraph blade in circles with that careless manner of his, long fingers never missing a beat. He could feel the slight pulse of the rune drawn between his shoulder blades, the one Neji himself had put on his skin with a stele for endurance before asking Lee for a one-on-one round. " _I needed to try something out_ ," he recalls telling Lee an hour ago.  
  
Not that Naruto still needed the said rune.  
  
There’s something about it that would always make Neji laugh, as if he’s in on some inside joke that Naruto doesn’t have an inkling about. It takes him four strides to reach the Hyuuga prodigy, who has put the weapon away and is now looking at him with eyes that seems to take him apart from the inside out. Naruto couldn’t help but speak out loud to diffuse the sudden tension he’s feeling, and for Neji to stop with whatever he is doing right now. “You have that look again.”   
  
Neji looks at him for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary before turning his eyes away and answering him back. “I should be the one saying that.” He looks like he wants to say more by the set of his shoulders, but Naruto sees him press his lips in a tight line as he bends over to pick up the seraph blade once again.   
  
If there’s one thing Neji’s good at-not that he’s bad in anything, for the record- it’s that he sees  _things_. He sees when Naruto isn’t up for sharing his thoughts, so he doesn’t push any further. He sees when his cousin, Hinata, would likely make a fool for herself in important Clave meetings with her stammer so he speaks up in her place instead. He sees when Hanabi is disappointed at the scarce instances when she couldn’t meet her father’s impossibly high standards, so Neji shoulders in more responsibility as he trains Hinata’s younger sister in the wee hours of the morning.  _You have good eyes_ , he tells Neji once. Neji had offered him a smile then, the sight so rare that Naruto had blinked several times as if to dispel some sort of glamour.   
  
_The Clave_. Just the thought of it sends bile down his throat.

  
“Naruto-kun, that was  _superb_ ,” Tenten gushes from behind him. Naruto turns around to face the brunette with several  _chakrams_ on her hands and a wicked-looking sword strapped behind her back.   
  
For the record, she would absolutely say superb to anything and anyone that knocks off either of her best mates.   
  
“Ten, come here and help out your most lovable friend,” Lee wails rather pathetically as he tries valiantly to stand up, only for his legs to give in beneath him.     
  
“Neji, I think I might have...overdone it a little?” He gives the man a sheepish smile, which earns him an uncharacteristic snort before they both trudge over Lee. Naruto looks at Neji, at those pale eyes as veins started to wound its way and bulge grotesquely on the skin around his eyes. “ _Byakugan_.”  
  
He looks over at Lee and sends him an apologetic smile, but Lee waves his worry away with a flick of his hand. "I volunteered, Naruto. It isn't as if I walked into this with my eyes closed. Besides, you know I'll do this for you. For-" But before he could finish, Neji cuts him off with a scathing look before speaking.

“It’s his sensory and motor nerves in the legs that are affected, though the nerves still looked intact and not yet severed. All of them looked like they were struck by threadlike...pins?" Naruto could hear the question in Neji's voice, "but nothing serious and irreversible, if those  _pins_  would be removed from his system. I’ve seen worse before and the Silent Brothers have managed to heal it.”  
  
Lee black eyes went wide as saucers as he registers what Neji is saying. “I don’t wanna see them again.” Naruto sees him shudder at the thought of the Silent Brothers. The healers. The archivists. The priests. But Naruto has seen them no more than as shadowhunters with faces so disfigured to the point of not being humanly recognizable anymore. They had haunted Naruto's dreams more than once- they are something you couldn't simply forget once you've seen them. He could vividly remember their hovering faces in the dark, their lips stitched shut, and some were even  _faceless_ , and Naruto's throat was already hoarse from screaming so loud-   
  
“Would I still be able to run 50 laps a day?” Lee genuinely inquires. Naruto shakes his head, locking away his memories in the dark recesses of his mind. Tenten sighs dramatically and looks at Lee with a mixture of exasperation and affection.

"I think Sakura would be more than enough," Neji assures him and helps Lee sit up in a more comfortable position.

Naruto tucks his phone away. "I already texted Sakura and gave her the gist of what happened." He runs a hand at the back of his head, still feeling guilty. "I really am sorry, dude. I owe you one." He thinks of ways he could make up for his friend. "How about I set you up on a date with Sakura-chan?"

Lee blushes a crimson red. "My youthful friend, it would be a pleasure." He puts a hand on his chest for emphasis, and there is a goofy grin plastered on his face. Naruto blanches at the thought of Sakura being remotely  _pleasurable._ He swears he could still feel the impact of her punch on the underside of his chin two years ago.

But oh well, people have their own fetishes, and who is he to judge and not give what his friend desires? Though a little bit of warning would probably be most helpful. "You know, Lee-"

But Lee never gets to know what he is about to say, because right then the skylight roofing  shatters open, shards of glass falling down like hail and sunlight pouring in, almost blindingly. Naruto whips out a hand, feeling the air respond to his silent command.  _Move,_ his mind says and his lips forming the word , and the trajectory of the falling broken glass changes towards the side and away from them. Neji had pulled Lee swiftly aside underneath a nearby table and now holds a seraph blade in his grasp.  _Remuel,_ he calls out in a steady voice, and the weapon comes into life, heavenly fire nicking at every square inch of the sharp blade _. You have to name a seraph blade before it becomes activated. An angel's name, in particular._ He could faintly hear Kakashi's somber tone as he taught him the basics back then. But it's power is only used against demons and downworlders, and not for protection against falling objects.

And then Naruto sees it as he cranes his neck up, several shadows looming overhead. Hissing sounds fill the training room.  _Demons._ He could feel his body thrumming, as if responding to the their presence.  _Of course I would be_ , Naruto thinks bitterly,  _how could I not_? He forces the growl threatening to break free down his throat, his hand instinctively fluttering towards his neck, but he couldn't feel the solid familiarity of his necklace.

He always forgets that it isn't longer with him anymore.

Naruto feels a hand land on his shoulder. "You okay there?" Tenten asks with worry laced in her voice. He gives her a timid smile and a thumbs up, and Tenten withdraws her hand to search in her weapons belt, most probably for her  _chakrams,_ her favorite for this month.  _I'm okay,_ he wants to convince them all.

_I'm not okay, I'll never be okay, not until -_

Neji wordlessly pushes a seraph blade on his hands. Naruto looks at it for a second, the deepest part of him abhorring the holy object he's holding, but his heart burns with desire, the kind of desire that engulfs you when you know something is meant for you, that it's  _yours_.  _I'm a shadowhunter,_ the blood in his veins seem to sing. He invokes out the name of the archangel. " _Michael_." It springs into life, and Naruto could feel its heat burning up all his thoughts away into dust, and suddenly there is just him and these demons threatening him and his friends. With the wind on his feet he leaps up high, until he is on level with the demons crouched on the remains of the roof.  _Mantids,_ his mind supplies as he takes in the insect-like form of the demons in front of him.

He whacks away the head of the nearest one with a swing, disappearing afterwards back to its realm. He launches forward, striking two at the same time, pulling the sword towards him with the elongated bodies still attached to it, using them as a stepping board to leap towards another one ahead. He turns around just before a bony arm pierces the back of his head, aiming for the spot between the two milky eyes. Viscous blood gushes out from the wound, staining his gear.

He really loathes the fact that  _ichor_  is  _so_  hard to remove from clothes.

"Naruto!" He hears a shout from below, and he takes several steps back before leaping high in the air, facing the room below where Neji and Tenten are impatiently waving their hands. Naruto summons the air around him, feels the wind in his hair and in his fingertips as he orders it to race down towards Neji and Tenten. He imagines it as tendrils of smoke wrapping around both of them. One moment their bodies seem to float and then the next they shoot up high, Naruto landing with them on the roof at the same time with a soft thud.

_Chakrams_  instantly fly out of Tenten's outstretched hands, weaving its way and finding their mark on the four nearby mantid demons. They all wink out of existence with a hiss, and she stalks off to shoot off more targets within the vicinity. Neji darts around and suddenly thrusts the long spear on his right hand through the belly of the demon before him and cuts off its head with a seraph blade blazing on his other hand. He pulls out the spear from the already nonexistent demon, only for him to push its length backwards, towards the demon he had sensed about to pounce on his back. It makes his long hair dance around him, and Naruto has to remind himself to  _breathe_ , and he has to take his eyes off Neji for him to do so.

He lunges at the three mantids on his right, letting his blade slice through them one by one in a successive twists of his wrist. He hears Tenten curse loudly as she jumps through the air and back down below, where a demon has apparently made its way to Lee. Naruto turns his attention to her, calling out the winds to soften her fall. He rotates the hilt until the blade faces backwards, thrusting it towards the demon that's about to attack him from behind. He propels himself backwards just as he frees his blade, landing squarely on top of another demon, plunging the seraph blade through the head deep to the bones until he hears an audible crack. He jumps off before it would disappear, landing on the soles of his feet. "Naruto." He hears the slight tremor in Neji's voice, and it makes him turn around to the sound of it.

After all, there are only a few things that Neji fears.

He could see that the Byakugan is activated, his look focused solely on top of one of the tallest commercial buildings in the heart of Tokyo, not too far away from here. He could barely make out a hunched form in the distance, and he could sense a sinister aura emanating from it. Neji turns his face sideways to look at him. "A greater demon."

Just then the doors of the training room from below bursts open, and the figure running dodges the  _chakrams_  careening in her direction with her gloved hands. All of them exclaims her name at the same time. "Sakura!"

Tenten mutters out her apology as she briefly explains to her what transpired. Sakura kneels in front of Lee as she listens, placing both her hands on his legs with a quick smile thrown on Lee's way, green light suddenly materializing from both her hands. After Tenten has finished, Sakura raises her voice to almost a shout, the sound reverberating across the room and into them above. "We'll talk later, Naruto."

Naruto hears the promise of violence in it loud and clear, and couldn't help a nervous laugh from escaping him. Neji tugs on his hand impatiently, and he makes a sign on Tenten. Whatever it is she seem to have understood, because she nods her head and says something to Sakura in a voice too low for them to hear up ahead. Without another word, Neji runs off, and Naruto follows behind, after shouting a hasty "be safe" to Sakura and Tenten and a conspiratorial wink to Lee.

Not that the pink-haired medic needed it. She's one of the most fearsome girls he'd ever met.  _Troublesome_ , he hears Shikamaru say as if he's here with him.

The careless comment had earned Shikamaru a black eye that he had nursed for nearly a month, and he'd learned to shut up since that incident.

They jump off roofs and any surface they would land on to. Naruto preferred using the wind to carry them off, not because he's too lazy but because it's faster and more efficient, but he knows Neji would say, "c _onserve your energy_." Besides, they both liked the feeling of stretching their leg muscles until they're sore in the morning, of straining themselves and pushing themselves to their limits. Naruto likes the way his lungs would burn for more oxygen, of doing  _something_. Neji glances back at him, his look a little bit taunting as he speeds up.

He knows most of Naruto's weaknesses, and just where his buttons are and when to push them-one of which is his inability to say no to a challenge. He puts in more force to his legs as he catches up to Neji, almost losing his footing on a stray pipe.

Sometimes he thinks about what would it be like if Neji is his  _parabatai_. A lifelong partner sworn to protect him with his life and bounded together by an oath. It is not required of a shadowhunter to have a  _parabatai_. But Naruto has known what it means to have one, a connection so fierce and strong that their own strength amplified the other, that their souls have seemingly become as one. He could feel the throb of his _parabatai_  rune just beneath his collarbone at the thought of wanting someone else. There was a time when he did foolish things to scrape off the Mark from his skin, but the  _parabatai_  rune is a permanent one and the bond would only be broken upon the death of his  _parabatai_.  _Let me die instead,_ he wanted to scream. He'd rather die back then rather than be left with a reminder of what has once been. The pain had been unbearable, as if he's ripped into two. It never went away - even now he could still feel the dull pain lingering just beneath his bones.

He couldn't blame the others who haven't chosen to have a  _parabatai_. Having one is uncommon these days, in part due to the dwindling number of shadowhunters left.

His thoughts screeches to a stop as they reach their destination, Neji right by his side. The skin on his arms and neck bursts with goosebumps as he takes in the form in front of them. The demon is so dark that the sunlight can't seem to penetrate it, and it's body is all smoke and oil. It towers over them, maybe ten feet tall.

He feels his insides twisting, as if something wants to come out.

Neji intones the name of the greater demon in a small but certain voice. Some say that knowing the demon's name grants you power over it. Naruto doesn't believe it one bit, and for good reason. " _Moloch_."

It happens in an instant- the expanse of the skies up ahead dims abruptly, and Naruto squints at the sun now being partially obscured by something else moving slowly, like an eclipse is happening at the moement. The ground shakes from beneath them, rocking in turn the foundations of the building they're currently on. Training days on tuesdays seem a huge blessing in disguise right then, because they're already Marked with runes awhile ago.  _Agility_.  _Precision_.  _Equilibrium_. Their feet remains planted on the ground.

The greater demon lets out an unearthly sound.

Naruto's doesn't wait anymore. He conjures up air rotating rapidly in his palms and sends it off towards the greater demon within seconds. He fondly calls it the Rasengan. The swirling ball hits the target spot on, the impact causing an explosion that gives off a heavy cloud of smoke. Naruto knows without looking that the demon's body wouldn't show any visible trace of injury, but it isn't what he's aiming for anyway. Neji has already took off, loops of flexible  _adamas_  in the shape of rope twirling around both his hands. The smoke would only last for a minute and is impenetrable to sight, but it is enough time for Neji to see through the haze with his  _Byakugan_. He does a complicated twist with his fingers that makes the rope fall on the demon, and he runs hastily in a circle as he tightens the hold of the rope onto its flailing body. 

An ordinary rope would burst into flames upon contact with a demon of any kind, but this one is especially made from  _adamas_ , a translucent metal forged by the  _Iron Sisters_ into tools and weapons wielded by the shadowhunters.

There's a shrilling sound as the cloud of smoke disappears, and suddenly numerous tentacles with razor-sharp teeth along its length lunges for Neji, who now skids to a stop and cuts off the rope with his seraph blade. Naruto wills the wind to carry Neji over to him; it does, and the tentacles tries to seize Neji's foot but Naruto's wind is faster, and the Hyuuga is by his side in a heartbeat. The rope-like  _adamas_  surrounding the demon lit up like it caught fire from the inside, and the tentacles stop in its tracks abruptly, hovering still before rushing backwards towards the greater demon. It must have absorbed the heavenly fire from Neji's  _Remuel_.

The  _Moloch_  stands immobile, some of its parts already melting before vanishing into thin air. Naruto stalks off towards it, intending to speak to it. "There must be a reason why you're here." The first time Naruto had seen it, he's overcome by a sense of foreboding. Not for it, but for what's to come. The air stinks of burning rubber and rotten egg, but his gaze never wavers, waiting for the greater demon to speak.

Finally, it does. " _Kyuubi,_ " it hisses to him, and Naruto feels a jolt run through his body. He counts one to ten, ten to one, and one to ten again as he forces  _it_  to go back, to not come out.  _Not now, not ever_. At times like this he is reminded of his ever-constant need for his  _parabatai_ , because in him Naruto draws strength to fight off the demon luring him to let it out. One touch of his  _parabatai's_  hand would have been more than sufficient to tame the ancient beast within him.

Sasuke. It's his  _parabatai's_  name. Most times Naruto doesn't acknowledge that he remembers it, because the name is like a knife driving through his gut, but now he thinks of him, because he  _must_. Sasuke would always know what to do, and what to say. (He knows almost everything, and he isn't called a genius for nothing.)

It calms him. Neji doesn't look like he's aware of Naruto's internal struggle, and he is partly grateful and mostly remorseful. Remorseful because it tells him that no one else is enough,  _could be_  enough, to be his  _parabatai_  but Sasuke.

The demon seems to notice though, its beady eyes gleaming and mocking him. "I ask you," Naruto tells through gritted teeth, "what are you here for?" He swivels  _Michael_  in front of the demon, and it turns away from the blaze. He brings the sword closer to it. "Tell me,  _Moloch_."

"I should be the least of your worries, angel boy." Its form is more than halfway disappearing from view already. And yet it continues to let out words in a guttural voice. "He has freed us all. The one with the demon eyes." And without a sound the greater demon dematerializes completely, leaving Naruto and Neji stunned.  _Demon eyes._ Time seems to slow down as Naruto tries to comprehend the information. The  _Sharingan_ unbiddingly looms at the back of his mind. He barely hears Neji call out his name.

_An Uchiha._

And there's only one of them who could possibly do this. It  _has_  to be.

The trip back to the Tokyo Institute is a hazy blur- he couldn't remember the conversation he had with Neji on the way back, his body has become numb of any feeling, and it feels like as if he is watching everything from outside his body. It's a strange feeling, indeed. The training room looked messier than when they've left it- apparently, another group of Mantid demons attacked but they're fewer in number and both Tenten and Sakura had managed to fend them off. Neji then recounts the events she'd missed up until their interaction with the greater demon, while Lee is walking around, his legs still wobbly and using Tenten as his crutch. Though they are doing something else, Naruto knows both of them well enough that they are listening attentively just as much as Sakura does.

"It seems timely, the fact that those demons attacked with the heads of the institutes around the world convened in a Clave meeting in Idris," Sakura wonders aloud, her sharp jade eyes swiveling around to Naruto. She takes in the expression on his face, or the lack of it, and she faces the others instead. He knows she would nag him into spilling whatever's bothering him later, when they're alone and back at the Osaka Institute. "I've contacted Kurenai. Actually, she should be here now." Kurenai is the head tutor in the Tokyo Institute, and, Naruto guesses, the unofficial head when Hiashi Hyuuga isn't around, being the only woman Hiashi trusts to be around with.

Then they hear it- the flurry of several footsteps hurrying across a narrow set of stairs leading to the training room. There's an audible creak before the double doors open, Kurenai easily on view. She walks towards them with delicate steps, her lips and eyes blood red but not in a devilish, disgusting way- she's sorta hot, if Naruto prefers to bark on the wrong tree and would prefer ladies. "Sorry for being late. As you see, I'm with the others as well." She points a manicured finger to the group behind her. Hinata, Kiba and Shino stand huddled together behind her, tight-lipped and worry etched plainly on their faces as they analyze the damaged skylight above, the fallen network of rafters, shards of glass scattered in all corners of the room, weapons lying haphazardly on the floor, most of the things out of their usual places and the appearance of Lee hanging on tight to Tenten. Hinata glances at Naruto, and gasps a little at what she sees.  _What do you see?_ , he wonders silently _._ "Are you alright, Naruto-kun?"

He hears her, and at the same time he doesn't. All he could remember are the words  _the one with the demon eyes_. He never heard of him, not for a few years, and now there's a demon spouting out about  _Sasuke_  and his sharingan and it has shaken him to the core, the fact that he's very much well alive _,_ and wrecking havoc, but nonetheless  _alive,_ out there _._ Naruto didn't believe in any god, though he believed in angels (oh the irony). He'd prayed once on an abandoned Catholic church when he'd visited a ghost town because of rumored demons lurking in the dilapidated houses . He had knelt in front of the cross and put his hands together and bowed his head and shut his eyes and wished for the millionth time, " _I don't want him dead. Just keep him safe_." His first thought hasn't been  _bring him back to me_ , though it had been a close second. He really just wanted Sasuke breathing first and foremost. He had repeated the words in a chant, as if saying it again and again would make it come true.

Apparently, it did.

Naruto walks over to them, saluting to Kurenai as he passes her by and then hugging Hinata when he reaches her, smiling at both Kiba and Shino a few feet away, the both of them watching him with wary eyes. "I'm fine." He gently taps her back before letting go. He looks around as he speaks. "We should clean this place up. I know Hiashi's a neat freak." The joke does its intended effect- the tension on everyone's shoulders lifts off, and Kiba hollers indignantly, "but we just got here!" while Lee lets out an excited yelp, only to be glared at by Sakura who says, "stay put, Rock Lee, or you will end up with more than two broken legs." Shino scurries off to start arranging the weapons in neat rows back on their shelves and lines some of them to the walls.

"I'll make the report regarding this incident and notify the Clave immediately. Neji, come follow me to the office." And with that they both walk out of the room. Tenten pushes Lee into a chair and then goes out, only to come back with several puncture-resistant glass disposal containers. Sakura looks at her quizzically as she picks up several shards of glass with her gloved hands. "Does every institute have one? 'Cause we don't." Naruto nods in agreement before adding, "Sakura, let me do that." The shards of glass in her hands suspends briefly in the air before moving towards the containers that Tenten has placed on the floor. He concentrates hard and suddenly all the remaining glass lying around lifts off from the ground and flies like birds taking flight towards the containers.

Tenten claps her hands, Lee lets out a whistle, Kiba mutters what sounds very much like "showoff," Shino just stares at him and Hinata smiles sweetly at him before turning back to folding up the training gears that have fallen off from the racks. Sakura doesn't even blink at him and puts her hands on her hips as she thinks about what to do next. She doesn't get to decide though, because her phone rings, Lady Gaga's "Telephone" blaring out loud for all of them to hear. He couldn't help but snicker at her. "I've never pegged you as the gaga type, Sakura-chan." She raises her middle finger before answering the call. "Haruno speaking." Whatever she hears next makes her scowl.

There are a lot of things that could make Sakura scowl.

She hangs up and immediately saunters off to Naruto. "It's Itachi. He says it's urgent but he says no more." She's practically seething, and the tips of her ears are bright red. People would assume that this often happens when one is flustered or embarrassed, but on Sakura it means she's frustrated as hell. "We've got to go."

There's a slight commotion as they bid their goodbyes. "Send Neji and Kurenai our thanks," Naruto mutters before both him and Sakura take off towards the roof still blasted open. He knows that the guys will figure out what to do about it. The sun lies brightly overhead. "It's already noon," Sakura says a matter-of-factly as they run side-by-side and jump off roofs, similar to what he and Neji have done on what already feels like ages ago. 

He still feels like he's been hit by some sort of faerie spell. He admits it to Sakura, because no matter what others would point out about her - that she's more than a little bitchy and she's has an air of a know-it all or that she's an intolerable perfectionist and is harsh on her words and in her actions as well- he considers her as a sister, someone he could confide with. She'd been there for as long as he could remember, and he couldn't imagine anyone else he'd run off to when he's having a hard time about anything. Especially if it's about Sasuke.

"Demons aren't warlocks or faeries, Naruto. They can't do magic." When he remains uncharacteristically silent, she speaks again."I know why you're like that." Her voice is always bossy and strong, but right now it's soft to the ears and has vulnerability in it. He turns sideways to find her already looking at him, her jaded eyes pleading. For what, Naruto already knows, but denies to acknowledge it. Naruto had read it up on the internet that of all the eye colors, green is the rarest one. Looking at them now feels like holding a live wire. "But you'd promised me already."

Naruto had only promised twice in his life, and to the same person. The first time had been when they were younger, after the Dark War happened. There were tears streaking down on Sakura's face, and it's the first time that Naruto had seen her cry. The sight of it makes him want to scream at anyone, punch anyone. To him she'll always be her precious girl. " _Promise me this Naruto_ ," she begs, her hands holding on to his shirt so tight that he worries it might split in half, " _that you'll take him back._ " In his mind's eye he had seen Sasuke, his raven hair and his raven eyes, his rare smiles and even rarer touches. That is,  _rare_  to other people, even to Sakura. But to Naruto he'd give out a smile so easily, so generously, and only if it could, flowers would've bloomed in his chest at the sheer sight of it.

That Sasuke morphs into the one Naruto had seen him last, the young Uchiha's scream echoing in the deepest parts of him, even now. It's just one of those things you can't really forget, try as you might.

It's the kind of scream that rips an opening in the ether, the one that says death isn't coming, it's already here.

Then the second one, this time only much more recent, exactly a year ago during his 19th birthday. He'd blown on his candles but it's Sakura who made a wish. She had pulled him to a secluded place as everyone was busy eating. " _Promise me, Naruto_." Her fingers had reached up as if to touch his face, but she had stopped herself. Maybe because Naruto had rejected her when she had confessed her love to him a week before. Things were still awkward between them, but they're best friends, so hopefully they'll get past this phase. " _Promise me that you won't look for him anymore_."

He didn't promise her, he  _couldn't_ , not until he went on one final rescue mission with Jiraiya. There had been a lead that turned out to be a set-up from the Akatsuki, or the anti-clave faction as what most people would describe them. It only ended with Jiraiya dead and Naruto barely making it out alive. Jiraiya, his mentor, the one who taught him to master his affinity for wind. The one he looked up to as his father. People were far too kind to say it straight to his face, but he heard them behind his back nonetheless. It varies from  _"Why doesn't he get it? That it's futile. That Uchiha boy might as well be dead."_ to _"Someone please talk some sense to him. We can't keep losing people just to find one person."_ It hit him like a freight train, how unfair it was for him to ask others to help him again and again, with nothing for them to gain in return. He felt sick of himself, because he'd never been so selfish before.

And yet he still couldn't give Sasuke up. There's a fire in him that just wouldn't burn out into ashes, the one that started with Sasuke saying, " _You're a shadowhunter, just like me,"_ with a blank face but his obsidian eyes held a kindness in it and something  _else_ , unlike those stares he'd been used to that would blatantly tell him " _you're a demon_ ".  So she swore that it would just be his personal conquest, his goal for himself. He wouldn't lean on to others for support. It has to be  _him_.

So at Jiraiya's funeral he had went up to Sakura with a straight back and conviction in his words. " _I promise_." Sakura wanted him to say it though, so he gave him what she wanted. " _I promise not to look for him anymore."_

The current Sakura puts an arm out and pushes him back to an abrupt stop when he doesn't answer immediately, standing in front of him with narrowed eyes. He puts on a placating smile. "I know, Sakura. You don't have to remind me once in a while." He hears the bitterness in his tone.

Sakura doesn't answer, just casts her eyes down. They're already near the train station that would take them to Shin-Osaka.  _Shinkansen_. Bullet train. But the trip would take them at least 2 and a half hours, and they couldn't afford to waste that much time if Itachi had called them for urgent matters. But someone lives close by, someone who could take them back home in a blink of an eye. They both jump down and into the pavement, walking side-by-side as they searched in the rows of houses lining up the sidewalk.

He thinks he must be imagining it- the  _Voyance_  rune at the back of Sakura's hand faintly glows, and Naruto peers down at the back of his own hand and notices that the outline of the permanent eye-shaped rune looks lit from the inside.

And there is something else shimmering in his peripheral vision, which makes him look up. He pulls Sakura, not really knowing where to go, until they reach an old-looking apartment complex, looking anything but sturdy. It glimmers in the sunlight one second and then suddenly they're gaping at a two-storey house the next. Shadowhunters would usually put  _glamours_  on their houses, just so mundanes would mistake them as dilapidated and worn out buildings, something that they wouldn't want to step foot in or would not catch their attention in the first place. Only Shadowhunters,  _Downworlders_  and those with  _The Sight_  would be able to see through those  _glamours_.

A figure leans on the front door, all porcelain skin and ebony eyes. The first time Naruto had seen him, the guy had reminded him of Sasuke, and he remembers the way his stomach had lurched as if wanting to empty its contents at his feet. But it takes him a minute to observe that they really don't look alike, despite the similar coloring. Sai has a more rounded face and chinky eyes. He smiles more and his hands were longer and smooth, elegant like a pianist. Sasuke's rough and crisscrossed with old scars that glinted silver in the moonlight, but Naruto found it beautiful, that Sasuke's hands that have fought and spilled blood from a young age had been the very same hands that had held him firmly at times when he'd wake from nightmares, screaming at the top of his lungs for his mother and father. The ones that had gently put the first runes ever on Naruto's skin -  _iratzes_ , or healing runes.

They've been the warmest to the touch, too.

Sai gives Sakura a pleasant smile. "Sorry for that. You know I change houses every full moon, and that I have to be creative to remain out of sight." And then he turns to Naruto. "So are you here for me to finally draw your penis?" He just gives Sai an exasperated look, already used to his antics, but Sakura blushes furiously and is about to smack Sai's head into the wall but Naruto yanks her back with both arms. When did Sakura had become so  _muscular_  and deathly strong? "Sakura-chan," he wheezes out her name in a puff, "we need him so it's better if you keep him alive."

Sakura breaks off from his hold by elbowing him in the face and goes off to Sai, but instead of bashing his skull, she settles for a strangle, all the while ordering him with an imperious voice, "make us a Portal rune. Right.  _Now_." When Sai's face already turns an alarming shade of purple, Sakura loosens her hold and steps back to give him space.

"Geez, Sakura, if you're into BDSM just let me know." That remark would've earned him another strangle if it isn't for Naruto's fast reflexes, clutching Sakura's upper arm in a viselike grip. "Just get on with it, Sai," he almost begs the man before him. Naruto watches him take huge gulps of air before turning his back to them, his hand taking hold of his stele and positions its tip on the fading paint of his front door. His hand does a complicated dance- it always looks like that everytime Sai's drawing runes, like it's an art- and the air around them starts to shimmer in broad daylight.

It  _is_  art, but most Shadowhunters use the stele for practical purposes - to draw runes that would offer them what they need and enhance themselves in training and in battle. But Sai is born an artist, and maybe that's why he's gifted with the ability to create runes that aren't usually seen in the  _Gray book_ , where all runes known to Shadowhunter are compiled. One of them is the Portal rune. Shadowhunters simply couldn't conjure a rune that could take them to any place at any time. But Sai inexplicably could, which is unheard of.

He's been hiding that fact from the Clave for years, and from people greedy with power. After all, Portal runes are not the only ones Sai could come up with. " _Am I a monster_?" Sai had asked him when he'd confessed about his unusual ability. He looked worried and a little afraid back then, devoid of his carefree smile and jovial attitude. Naruto remembers his breath knocked out of him, because he'd heard it before.

So he answered the same response he'd answered as before. " _No, you're just special._ " And then Sai had told him that he wanted to keep it a secret, and Naruto had respected his privacy without asking why, like he didn't ask  _why wouldn't you join us in the Institute? why do you prefer to be alone?_  After all, everyone has their reasons, and Naruto trusts him. Sakura had found Sai's secret in an accident, and she'd sworn she would never tell it. Naruto had told him that he could trust her, so Sai did, although half-heartedly.

Now the three of them are as tight as they could be, and both him and Sakura would often seek out Sai's assistance, which he would give lavishly, just as much as they would be there for Sai in a whim every time he's send a fire-message to them.

Sai brings down his hand. There seems to be a crack that had opened up in front of them from another dimension, but the only thing they could see is a vast void of swirling colors. Sakura tackles Sai from behind and hugs him tight. "I've missed you," she whispers against his back. Sai pats her hair and leans down to say something in a hushed voice that Naruto couldn't hear it. Sakura's brows draw together in an instant, but whatever Sai has told her, she apparently decided to ignore it, and now she beckons Naruto to come with her through the portal. She holds out a hand, and he takes it in his grasp in a heartbeat.

With one last look at Sai, he murmurs a silent thank you. Sakura has already step through, and Naruto is just a second after her, but he hears what Sai has been telling him before he falls into the whirling, soundless nothingness. "Excelsior, Naruto."

_Onward and upward._

**Author's Note:**

> AS you can see, this is heavily based on Cassandra Clare's work of art, The Dark Artifices series (although The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices sorta played a role also, since the story revolves around the Shadowhunter World).
> 
> So many details left out, I know (poor baby Sasuke LOL). And I tried to lay out all the basics (well not really ALL) in a way that wouldn't overwhelm you. This is just a short fic, maybe three or four chapters at most, because I only have one story to tell: Naruto and Sasuke's, and not about how the shadowhunters came to be and how their world ticks. So don't expect me to reveal the details of how they've met Sakura or Sai, or what happens around in the Clave. But the ones important to the plot will be fully explained in the following chapters, so watch out ;) And really, just read all of Cassie's books because they all rock!!!
> 
> Please tell me what you think, I really would love to hear from you! (Especially classes will resume in a short while. Sighs).


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